Something to Offer

Requirements for election to the National Academy of Sciences are brief and discriminating. Only distinguished scientists are admitted, men who have made original contributions to research. The exclusive academy (present membership 650) has been a willing servant of the U.S. Government ever since it was founded by President Abraham Lincoln 99 years ago. The academy conducts research for any Government agency that requests it, charging only expenses. In the past, its investigations have ranged from the economics of fertilizer use to the effectiveness of military uniforms. And, through hot and cold wars, the academy's offspring, the National Research Council, has mobilized the nation's scientific resources. In an era when science is intimately involved with national policy, the academy is the scientific community's most articulate spokesman in Washington.

Last week at its annual meeting, the academy elected a new president. Retired after an unprecedented three terms was Physiologist Detlev W. Bronk, 64, who has run the academy since 1950. Chosen to take his place was 50-year-old Dr. Frederick Seitz, a dry-humored physicist from the University of Illinois, who has played a bright role in a new science: solid-state physics.

In the '30s, Seitz and Princeton's Eugene P. Wigner devised a method for calculating the forces that bind atoms together in a metal, an application of new theory to solid-state physics. Later, Seitz wrote The Modern Theory of Solids, the first comprehensive survey of solid-state physics, and made significant contribution to the development of such solid-state devices as transistors.

Throughout much of his career (Stanford, Princeton, Rochester, Pennsylvania and Carnegie Tech as well as Illinois), Seitz has been an outspoken champion of scientists who devote their talents to national problems. In the midst of the loud soul-searching that followed President Truman's 1950 announcement that the U.S. would develop a hydrogen bomb, Seitz stood before the American Physical Society and laid it on the line for his anti-H-bomb colleagues. Said he: "Who among us will feel sinless if he has remained passively by while Western cul ture was being overwhelmed?" In his new job at the academy, Seitz plans to prod even more scientists into working for national security. Says he: "This is the way a democracy works. It depends on the private citizen making his services available in the public interest when he has something to offer."

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